5.1 Surround Sound speaker system not working in Windows 7 Professional 64bit edition

Anonymous

My problem is pretty much the same as other users who can't get their surround sound speaker system to function properly in Windows 7.

I have a subwoofer and 5 speakers (2 for front, 2 for rear, 1 for center). Connection to the on-board RealTek HD Audio is simple, orange for the subwoofer, green for front and black for rear.

Testing the sound in the RealTek HD Audio Manager and Control Panel->Sound windows produces a sound on all channels at the same time, which is the desired setup.

However different applications use different channels. IE and Firefox uses the front channels, VLC/MediaPlayer uses the rear. 3D games (ie WoW) uses all channels. In each case the subwoofer doesn't work.

I have already tried downloading the latest drivers from the motherboard manufacturers website (Gigabyte). I even tried the RealTek provided drivers (even though on RealTek's website that is NOT recommended). I have tried connecting the subwoofer connectors to different jacks (reversed black and green).

I have experimented with the settings in the RealTek HD Audio Manager and Control Panel->Sound windows. Nothing works.

These exact same subwoofer and speakers worked perfectly fine in Windows XP.

I have 2 questions:

a) Has anyone resolved their 5.1 & Windows 7 problem doing something I haven't tried yet?

b) When is Microsoft going to take this problem seriously? All of the Microsoft provided answers just repeats what everyone else

has already tried.

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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Anonymous

First unplug 3 cable (orange, green and black) then Go to control panel - Hardware and sound - Real tek HD audio manager - tick center, subwoofer and rear pair, front left and right and speaker fill

Then click Device advance settings.

select "make front and rear output devices playback two different audio streams simultaneously" and give ok

The plug all the three pin one by one and select proper option in the popup windows.

thats all.

You didn't give me enough information to get this working. My system runs Win 7 X64 Home Premium. When I select 5.1 sound as the capability the side speakers of my Logitech x550's are not recognized. If I select 7.1, which is the chipset capacity of my Realtek chip, I can get the two outside speakers enabled as "rear" speakers. and can push test tones to each of the four surrounding speakers and to the center/bass combination via the Realtek driver.

As far as the "make front and rear output devices playback two different audio streams simultaneously" is concerned... I can't find this option. There are at least two providers of "control interfaces" active on my system. One is provided by RealTek, the other by Microsoft. The paths to these interfaces is circuitous and confusing, to say the least.

IMHO some compromises are in order. I've got my Pandora One stream playing acceptably in my small study. Many of the source sounds streamed for me are recorded in stereo, or even mono, so I find myself hitting the "matrix" button on my Logitech X550 control fairly frequently. Occasionally a newer piece is delivered which actually sounds Ok without the "matrix" decoder.

What I would really like to be able to do is to "reconfigure on the fly" between the built in USB speaker bar on my Acer Z3731 "All in One" system and my external Logitech X550's with the capacity for 5.1 "surround sound" presentation via three wires. When I try your procedure, I don't get separate recognition of each wire as it is plugged in and often end up with 2.1 sound being pushed out to my 5.1 external speakers because somehow Microsoft has re-recognized the built in USB based sound bar instead of the three rear wires plugged into the jacks provided by the system manufacturer.

If there ever were separate "Speakers" and "Realtek" icons displayed in the user interfaces on my system, the speakers are long gone and I can't get them back. All I see is the Realtek driver. I would like to see two different "Speakers" Icons I could label "Built-in 2.1" and "External 5.1" in addition to the Realtek driver. How do I get these to reappear?

Can anyone suggest a way to have two different sets of "speakers" recognized and identified within the Microsoft UI in addition to the Realtec driver? If I could get this done, I believe the driver would let me "set as default" one or the other speaker set, and I'd have "software switching" capable of letting me choose whether the external speakers or the built in sound bar delivers the sound.

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49 additional answers

Anonymous

2017-11-06T16:44:45+00:00

yes I try everything still not work

I can't help any more because my systems are now running Windows 10 Home Premium and the old "matrix decoder" surround sound speaker system got left behind to be sold when we moved. I suspect your first language is not English, and that this thread is now pretty obsolete for most readers. BBFN
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Anonymous

2017-11-06T09:10:11+00:00

yes I try everything still not work
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Anonymous

2015-12-21T22:30:02+00:00

I cannot offer much help, but I will caution you. My old Logitech 5.1 "surround sound" speaker system isn't all that smart. Others in the thread have pointed to needing 7.1 capable drivers for their sound chipset, and I discovered that my particular model of the Logitech wired stuff works better with the "decoder" option on a lot of my source material which is MP3 created from old records, no matter what drivers and settings...If the Surface has a modern Media output, I suspect you can purchase something which will decode it which is independently powered, or possibly even set up a "Bluetooth" system... I have an Onkyo TX-NR 626 receiver connected to my media in my family room. It supports Bluetooth and my Samsung Galaxy IV which is a two year old phone, will play 5.1 source via Bluetooth over my 7.1 surround sound speakers there. I'm not that familiar with the outputs on the Surface, but... you get the idea. If it has a headphone jack, you may only get stereo using that jack as your output. If it networks wirelessly with your computer network, Windows Media Services running on another system connected to speakers will "serve sound" from it by going to the media service running on another computer.
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Anonymous

2015-12-21T21:53:36+00:00

I thought I would weigh in with my solution that is working on Windows 10 with a Realtek chipset (Asus Z97A-USB3.1 motherboard and Creative T6160 speakers).

These speakers worked fine on my old system but on the new motherboard on Windows 10, I couldn't get rear sound almost no matter what I did in either Windows 10 Control Panel or Realtek Audio Manager.

Here's what I finally did:

I went into Windows Sound Control Panel (click the Windows icon and type "Sound" and choose "Sound (Control Panel)".

Then I clicked Configure. Since some people said 7.1 audio worked, I clicked 7.1 Surround and then tested the speakers. Finally I got sound from the rear speakers! (Setting 7.1 in Realtek Audio Manager never gave me any sound from them regardless.)

Then I clicked next and clicked non-full (because the Creative has a subwoofer) and then I unchecked side speakers.

Now, everything works! Windows plays through all the speakers and so does Realtek Audio Manager HD.

Testing all my games next.
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